


A Timeline of Tony Stark

by Squeeful



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1514762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeeful/pseuds/Squeeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four through forty, it's not a simple road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Timeline of Tony Stark

He's four when he builds his first circuit board. He'll tell people that proudly. He'll never tell anyone it took him a week, three temper tantrums, and a melted sludge of solder, his cognitive development so far ahead of his fine motor control that he kept dropping parts. The frustrated impatience never leaves him.

Eight and starting to get what it means to be so different from everyone else. He feels like he's speeding ahead while everyone's stuck in second gear and it's maddening. The world is bright and sparkling and he wants to share it, but there's no one to show it to. No one to talk to. He talks to his work. Maybe someday it will talk back.

Twelve is when he truly understands that he scares people. It used to be funny, running rings around the adults in his life. Not so much any more now he knows what those looks mean. He starts to hate whispers.

He's fourteen when he builds his first limited-awareness AI robot. It's not complex, except in all the ways it is, more like an uncoordinated puppy than a genuine help, but he likes it. It gets him attention. MIT comes knocking on his door. _Time_ says he's surpassed his father. Howard calls him a disappointment.

Seventeen and graduated from MIT, his age mates in their junior year of high school. They don't understand him, nor he they, and he's okay with that. Say anything often enough and you’ll start to believe it.

Nineteen and an orphan, drunk on booze he's too young to buy, but has delivered anyway. No one who mattered ever told him no.

Twenty-one and CEO, the wunderkind grown up. The world waits to see him fail. He doesn’t. Starks don’t fail, they rewrite success. His revision puts SI on the global map.

Twenty-eight and the company’s so big, he needs a second brain to keep track of it all. Pepper enters his life and things have never been so good. He makes his first billion.

Thirty-four and on top of the world. He can do no wrong and he’s loving it. His work talks back; he names it JARVIS. Too bad he still doesn’t like mirrors. (No one would ever believe him.)

Thirty-seven and his bubble blows up around him. The Tony Stark who comes back is the not the one who left. That man is dead and buried in the sand.

Thirty-eight and he's dying again, poisoned by his own borrowed time. He rebuilds. It’s what he does.

He hits forty and forty hits back. He’d like to see fifty try.


End file.
